Typical communication in a workplace is performed for the most part in an ad hoc manner. For example, one person may encounter another person in a hallway and make a passing comment on a topic of mutual interest, or drop by a person's desk to ask a question, etc. As a result of workplace proximity, communities of interest are established and informal communications proceed among members of such communities of interest.
By contrast, normal telephony communication is formal in nature in that a request to establish communications is submitted (i.e. a person dials a telephone number), and the destination party either accepts or rejects that request (i.e. the destination party answers the telephone or lets the telephone ring). As a result of the semi-strict rules by which communications must be established using traditional telephony equipment, ad hoc conversations among members of a community of interest cannot be supported.
If the call is declined or if the destination party is already on the telephone, the originator of the call is normally provided with an option of leaving a voicemail message for the destination party. Once a voicemail message has been left, then the destination party normally receives a form of audio or visual indication (e.g. flashing message light, etc.). Once the destination party is available, he/she may call into the voicemail system, determine who called and what was the message. Such strict and formal communication flow does not lend itself well to the typical short exchange of information that occurs between two co-located office workers within a community of interest.
Technological advances over the last decade have enabled members of a workforce to be in geographically disparate locations while working on a common project or set of projects. While this is convenient for any number of reasons, such geographical displacement reduces the ability of members within a community of interest to undertake ad hoc communications.
Currently ‘buddy lists’ are used on instant messaging systems like ICQ and AOL to indicate the availability status of other users that the user may wish to communicate with. These systems provide an effective text-based communication mechanism for members of a community of interest, but no practical systems are yet available for notifying users of communication mutual availability status and establishing ad-hoc verbal communication among members of a community of interest.
Busy lamp fields (BLFs) are also in telephone systems for providing attendants with an indication of communication availability status in the form of busy/idle indicators for the telephones in the system. BLFs are expensive and so are normally only used at specialized attendant positions. They also indicate only the busy status of the users' telephones and not actual availability. Furthermore, BLFs show all users and the display is not in any way limited to those persons of current interest to a particular user.